Undaunted Pioneers

Ever Moving
ONWARD - WESTWARD
and
HOMEWARD

As Told byMary Dunn

A Time of Anxiety

But over our beautiful Southland
a
war cloud bided its time. Even the stoutest hearts felt a vague
unrest
as the time approached to take sides in the issues at stake. In our
home
the call of the West clambored insistently and persuasively. In 1849 my
father, Isaac Hill, accompanied by his son, La Grande, his mother,
Elizabeth
Land Hill (who was a relative of Joseph Lane, the first Gobernor of
Oregon)
his three brothers, William, Russell and George, his sister louise
Kelley
with her husband and son, Isham Keith, and a nephew Sterling Hill,
crosed
the plains. They spent the winter in the Willamette Valley, and
father
built a saw mill in Clatsop County on the Columbia. Here he
planned
to establish a permanent home, but early in the spring of 1850 news of
rich gold mines near Yreka, California, stirred the little
settlement.
Preparations for going there were soon made. My uncle, Russell
Hill,
had married a Miss Cheedle near Salem, and Grandmother Hill made her
home
with them. They decided to remain in the valley as also my
brother
La Grande. Father and his brothers, William and George, left for
Yreka where they began working in the "Humbug Mines" -- so called
derisively
and as it turned out inappropriatly. As they passed through the Rogue
River
Valley they camped on what was later the Dunn farm, and its beauty was
a lodestone that drew my father insistently. When Aunt Louise and Uncle Kelly
reached
Yreka, and it became known that a white woman was in town, the miners,
greatly excited, gathered around the little cabin just to gaze at
her. Aunt Louise had taken a little sheet iron stove across the plains
with her; now before an appreciative audience she collected her
equipment
and began to bake pungent dried apple pies. This was more than
home
pie hungry famished men could endure. They begged almost
tearfully,
for the privilege of buying all she could bake. When that first
day
in Yreka drew to a close, Aunt Louise found herself possessed of fifty
dollars and a thriving business. It soon became evident that the
Humbug
Mines were rich in ore, and the Hill brothers worked in them
successfully
until the spring of 1851. Uncle George now decided to go on to Southern
California. Uncle William returned to Missouri and father
prepared
to follow the trail back to Tennessee. He brouight two mules,
loaded
one with provisions, mounted the other and set out for home. He arrived
in Sweetwater in the fall of 1851.

The Decision to Move Westward

At once we began preparations for
our
long overland journey to Oregon. We put up quantities of dried
peaches
for our trip. It is never easy to break the tender ties that bind
a well-established family to the old home community. My mother
was
filled with trepidations and anxieties, yet she bore her fears in
Spartan
silence. My two sisters, Haseltine (Has) and Martha (Lou), and my
two brothers, John and Cicero and myself were all fired with the
curiosity
and eagerness of youth in their teens. Some of this feeling was
tempered
as we began to realize the immensity of the undertaking in choosing the
things that we could take with us. Father left all of our books
except
Pilgrim's
Progress and the Bible. I smuggled my Kirkem grammar in
and brought it along without his knowledge and have given it to one of
my grand-daughters. Early in February, 1852, we left
Sweetwater,
Tennesee, for our new home in fr away Oregon. All of our
transportable
possessions -- bedding, clothing, and food -- were packed in boxes made
of white poplar just the width of the wagon beds. They were
placed
in a large wagon drawn by mules. Has and I rode with the driver,
and the rest came by horseback and in a light rig. We went fifteen
miles
to Lowden and stayed at a hotel that night. In the morning
we went down the Tennessee River for two days to Decatur,
Alabama.
One event of the trip remains distinctly in my mind. On we struck
a rock and when the shock was over, the captain asked his wife, "Were
you
frightened?" "Not much" she replied. Then turning to me she
asked,
"Were you?" Thereupon they instructed me that if anything should happen
I must hold fast to a bale of cotton, and I would be able to
float.
We passed a shot tower along the way. A cradle of boiling lead
high
in the tower was poured through a sieve and dropping into the cold
water
of the river made shot. From Decatur we went overland to
Tuscumbia
in a large bus drawn by six horses. They followed the railroad
right-of-way
which had been graded byt nit finished at that time. The scenery
was beautiful as we went through the courtry of gardens and cotton
fields
with the darkies singing as they worked. This was around Muscle
Shoals
of which we have heard so much the last few years. I remember it
as a boiling tumble of water full of eddies and rapids. Here we
boarded
the "Saranac" and went north on the Tennessee River to the Ohio, then
to
the Mississippi. There was a heavy storm at Cairo and we were
detained
there a day and a half. There was a big dance and a fine supper
on
the boat that night. Then we traveled on north to Saint
Louis.
Here on March first we transferred to the boat, :Kate Kearneyh," and
left
on our last river ride to Alexandria. A stage coach took us from
there to Athens, Missouri. Here we were glad to visit on a farm
with
father's sister, Elizabeth Duty, and to rest for the next lap of our
journey.
We stayed with these relatives during the month of March while father
and
the boys worked on the outfit that we were to take across the
plains.
From Athens we went to Keokuk, Iowa to visit father's brother,
Claybourne
Hill, who decided to accompany us West. I can remember one evenng
while at Uncle Claybourne's, we were all singing "How Firm a
foundation,"
and someone said, "Mary, you sing like your father." He had such
a beautiful voice, it made me very proud. The days spent here were too busy
for homesickness or regrets. We made tents, sunbonnets and other
things for our comfort along the way. Father had a wagon made
with
a body in the shape of a boat and calked it so it could be rowed across
streams too deep to ford. On the side of the wagon was hung a
stove
with reflectors to use for baking purposes. Father purchased one
hundred fifty head of cattle, mostly young heifers, a span of four fine
mares in the country near Oscaloosa, Iowa. Finally we were ready
for the start tommorrow. Nine wagons had been brought up to the
house
to be packed. Ox teams had been selected from the three hundred
head
of cattle. Our own family had four wagons, one humdred fifty head
of cattle and six yoke of oxen and the mare teams. Our provisions
for our family of seven and two hired men consisted of cornmeal, flour,
peans, rice, bacon, sugar, coffee, tea, cream of tartar, dried fruits
and
quantities of corn for the stock. We had two tents.